Which Colony? Which Block?: Violence, Urban Planning and Post-Colonial Writing

Classical theories of modernism, whether architectural, industrial, aesthetic or political, put a certain emphasis on planning as a way of ameliorating disorder and violence that were seen to be inherent in social life. But what if planning produces and distributes violence rather than eliminating it? This talk considers the relationship between planning, violence and literature in the contexts of colonialism and post-colonialism in the case of the iconic site of modernity — the colonial city. Upamanyu looks at the continuing legacy of this planned violence in the postcolonial world of south Asia by looking at two examples of contemporary Indian novels, Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger (2008) and Ruchir Joshi’s The Last Jet-Engine Laugh (2001), and exploring how literary narratives offer crucial critical, reflective and affective modes of intervention in our understanding of the relationship between planning, order and violence. Upamanyu Pablo Mukherjee is a Reader (Associate Professor) at the Department of English and Comparative Studies, Warwick University, U.K. He teaches and researches in the areas of British imperial literatures and cultures, postcolonial literary and cultural theories, environmental studies, urban studies and world and comparative literary theories.